2000 Alabama Senate Elections
The 2000 Alabama Senate Elections took place concurrently with Senate and House of Representative elections in all other 49 states in the U.S. on July 6th, 2000, with the primaries taking place on February 6th, 2000. Elections Republican Party Primary (Class 1 Senator) Sessions faced no challenger in the Republican party, as he was considered nearly unbeatable due to his high favorability among residents of Alabama. Democratic Party Primary (Class 1 Senator) Jones also faced no challenger from his own party in the primary. Like Sessions, he was considered to be by far the strongest candidate his party could run, so other Democrats saw it as pointless to try to beat him. It was also seen as impossible that anyone would beat Sessions, so most Democrats largely ignored the race. General Election (Class 1 Senator) Despite looking like a runaway at face value, and still being pretty close to a landslide, Sessions actually won by a slimmer margin than many expected. Many experts projected Sessions to get into the mid 70s, and Jones down in the mid 20s. Sessions spent far less money than Jones, mostly due to the fact that the election was considered in the bag for him before it even really started. A sense of complacency from Sessions and a strong campaign by the Jones team factored into this race being closer than most thought. Republican Party Primary (Class 2 Senator) Shelby, who had experience in politics after working on Andrew Jackson's 2000 Presidential campaign just months earlier easily beat out GOP insurgent Roy Moore. Moore ran on an extremely anti-government platform and vowed to vote down any measure that would increase the government's role in daily life. Being that the country was brand new, and had almost no laws, the people of Alabama decided to support someone who would set up the government the way they wanted, rather than not set it up at all. There was never a time in the race that Roy Moore surpassed 20% of the vote, and the lowest he reached was 10%, but he received a late surge after exposing a "scandal" around President Washington just a week before the primary, which turned out to be entirely false. Democratic Party Primary (Class 2 Senator) If there was anybody who was seen as more unbeatable in Alabama politics than Jeff Sessions, it was Richard Shelby. That didn't exactly enthuse many Democrats and make them want to run. Ron Crumpton, a local businessman decided he'd take a chance since nobody else wanted to step up to the plate. He spent almost no money however in either the primary or general election. General Election (Class 2 Senator) As expected, Shelby cruised to a landslide victory in the general election. Shelby was polling in the low 90s for much of the race, but in the final week, in response to criticism saying Alabama Republicans were "too partisan" and "wouldn't be able to negotiate," Shelby stated that he would be "willing to work with Democrats and compromise on some issues," which helped his numbers among moderates and conservative Democrats, but actually brought his overall numbers down due to losing the support of some staunchly conservative Republicans. Major Issues Being so early in the nation's history, and with no real laws created yet, these first elections were extremely crucial because it would determine how the United States government would be formed and set up. Voting Rights Voting rights were one of the most important issues. In the 2000 Presidential election, everyone who showed up was allowed to vote and those who did not vote received a small fine. Roy Moore said he would be in favor of limiting voting to white males. Richard Shelby slammed Moore's "discriminatory" plan, and said that all U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote. Sessions also supported Shelby's plan, but remained silent when pressed about Moore's remarks. Doug Jones took a softer tone when criticizing Moore, saying it was "probably not the right place and time for that." Ron Crumpton said that all landowners should be allowed to vote. Taxation and Government Spending Moore again made headlines when he said "taxes should fall on the shoulders of those who aren't white men." Sessions stated that he believed in limited government and said that taxes "should be extremely low, if we're going to even have them at all." Jones echoed Sessions' plan. Richard Shelby said he "understands the importance of funding the government, especially at this crucial point in its development," and supported a "middle" tax level that would be a compromise between making sure the government could function properly and taxing the citizens too much. Crumpton wanted taxes to be paid only by citizens, and not by business, as some suggested.